Being the home-country of many Iranians, Sweden has always been a
hotbed for aspiring Iranians in MANY professional areas. In terms
of Entertainment and its branch of MUSIC to be precisely, the first
one to break the MAINSTREAM barriers and -ground was the Iranian
rapper RO-CEE, who reached the TOP-position on the charts already
back in 1995 with his west-coast sounding MEGA- HIT “Gettin‘ all
da Babes“. Around the same time came the female rapper CREAM
of the duo ADDIS BLACK WIDOW with their first successful album.
In recent years we have witnessed the international success of
the CLUB-FILLER Dj Aligator and of course the little rapper NICO
as the youngest member of this ever-growing MAINSTREAM-movement.
These days the ROCK-heroine Laleh is on the rise with her “Invisible” and
of course the young brother of the talented director Alec Cartio,
Cameron Cartio, who is fighting bravely on his way to the EUROVISION
SONG-CONTEST 2005 with his “Roma“! …these, only
a few names among MANY talented artists active and relatively successful
in the Swedish industry!

Arash Labaf, a young MAINSTREAM songwriter/producer with many years
of experience in his artistic luggage, was first introduced as ALEX
to the public as you can see in his guest appearance in Rebecca Zadig’s “Temptation”.
Today he has released his debut album, entitled “Arash Arash” as
a parody on his first HIT-song “Boro Boro”! The albums
features collaborations with Robert Uhlmann, Johan Bejerholm, Max
Tavahen, Charles Burbank, Ronny Gold, Sammy Goz, Ishtar, Pedro Maza
Luaces, Cezar Zamini, Anila Mirza, Ecco, Timbuktu, Esben Iversen,
M. Nielsen, Dj Aligator, Christian Steen Jensen, RAL, Ali Afati,
Payam Payami, Andreas Johansson, Farid Zoland, Ardalan Sarfaraz and
Anders Wrethov.

The album kicks off with a ”tail-rider”! A tail-raider
on another tail-rider, actually! What does that mean you might very
rightfully ask!? Well, it means that this song is meant to cash in
on the success of ”Boro Boro” which itself was a commercial
attempt to cash in on the success of the PANJABI MC! ”Tike
Tike Kardi” enjoys the same pseudo-Hindi accent and a bit more
Middle Eastern influences. The song however lacks its predecessor’s
freshness and therefore its strong potentiality!

Another one in Arash’s borrowings from other songs is ”Yalla” which
is a song with a chorus derived almost completely from a song Arash
likes to describe this way:

”three years ago when I was in Kairo (Cairo), I bought an
old cassette at a bazaar. There was one song on this cassette that
was simply fantastic, and I kept listening to it during my stay there.
It’s that song that inspired me to write Yalla”

And since you still today don’t know Arash-jaan, let me inform
you that this very song happens to be Amr Diab’s HIT ”El-Alim
Allah”! The arrangement too holds borrowed segments from Brian
Wayy’s arrangement for Mansour’s ”Faghat Bekhaatere
To”. A strong song, but for those who DON’T recognise
the original Diab song! A song from the HIP HOP HORA O.S.T..

And now to THE song which made Arash to a household name! ”Boro
Boro” needs no further introduction! A song with a catchy jargon
and title! A clever tactic move to tail-ride the mental way that
Antique’s ”Opa Opa” once paved, since westerners
have relatively easier to adopt such titles! The Indian melody is
copied from Tweet’s ”Call Me”!

Another Sweden-based singer has joined Arash for a duet-remake of
his own old ”Ey Yaar Begoo”! Ebi of course, the MASTER
OF VOICE! In a EURO-TRANCE fare with Arash FINALLY showcasing his
REAL and lovely Persian accent!

”Temptation” was meant to be the SUGAR-sweet Rebecca
Zadig’s take off in the sky of music. The song mainly derived
from ALABINA’s original, is here remade and revised lyrically
to feature Rebecca as the guest-artist instead of Arash! Another
TOP-NOTCH track that deserves to be re-released with a new stronger
commercial PUSH.

Symptom: Writing a passionate LOVE-song for no other than …himself!!???
Diagnose: The man suffers apparently from a low self-esteem …NOT!!
(*LOL*)!!!
Maybe the best song from the album featuring the sweet-voiced and
Persian-singing (I guess) non-Iranian Helena in an AMAZING duet! ”Arash” is
a LATIN/R&B ballad with a SUMMER FLOW!! A bit hard to take the
lyrics seriously, but HEY!!! … Arash jaan yaadet nare ye esfandi
vaase khodet dood koni aziz (*LOL*)

The lead from the BOMBAY DREAMS O.S.T. feat. Rebecca and Aneela
in a Hindi/English song with Arash singing in …URDU!!

Now Now!! The first released song from the album is here! ”Man
o To” came as an obvious tail-rider on the PANJABI MC-mania
last year! When I first heard this song, I thought it was by an Afghan
Londoner! A nice song with a TARKAN-ian influence!

His fellow MALMÖBO rapper ”Timbuktu” has supported
him in ”Baskon”, a mellow song with a typical ”Timbuktu” sound
and jargon. Here performing in English instead of his usual rap in
Swedish. Nice, will do well on charts!

In the already a HIT Dj Aligator-duet ”Music is my Language” can
Arash once again showcase his ability to sing strongly in Persian!
It is truly a SHAME that his wings are cut by the industry and are
not able to unfold and free-fly! Nevertheless is this heavy CLUB
FARE a HIT to be played and replayed in years to come! WELL DONE
BOYZ!!!

”Salamati” is a PERSIAN song with ORIENTALISTIC influences!
Reminds me of the old SHAD RABBANI sound! Hey!! …The man CAN
WAIL!!

PERSIAN-ANDALUSIAN comes ”Behnaz” khanoom (who is allegedly
also Arash’s real-life girl friend) as the last original track
on the album with a VERY STRONG potential to please Arash’s
Iranian fans and fill the floors of the Iranian CLUBS! Haalaa dastaaaaaa
baalaaaaaaaaa!! …GHERRRRRRR be kamarrraaaaa!!!!!!

The North-Europeans have always had a taste for EXOTIC music from
the East, especially during the summers where the weather condition
is more suitable and manage to set up the right scenery and mood
for the songs to grow on the people of the North. Every year, at
least one song from the southern European countries finds its way
via the passengers’ luggage to the European HIT-charts and
the households. Tarkan’s “Simarik” was the first
song with Middle Eastern influences to be included in this line of
songs, which later became even covered by the Australian star Holly
Valance. But never had a “local” act managed to do what
Arash has done today, to break through with a song in a foreign language
before the Greco-Swede duo ANTIQUE did five years ago with their
cover on “Opa Opa“! So unfortunately is Arash NOT the
first in those lines of trend-makers! However, he is THE FIRST Iranian
to convince sooo many Swedes to actually BUY his music!! In these
days of illegal copying and lost revenues for ailing companies not
even the most credible artists get to release a record that easily! “Boro
Boro” sold so many copies that the song broke the sales record
by staying #1 for weeks and on top 10 for more than two months! Although
we have had many internationally acclaimed and famous artists of
Iranian decent, Arash is de facto THE FIRST Iranian to succeed on
an international scene and level by songs in his mother tongue …Persian!!

So, are the Indian overtone of the album and Arash’s persona
really derived from the reported LOVE of Arash for BOLLYWOOD?!! It
might be so to an extent, but not entirely so in my opinion! I think
that the sudden and unexpected success of “ Boro Boro” more
or less came to entrap him in the temporary commercial niche that
he had once found for his artistic survival! As an artist Arash is
hardly an innovator, at the same time his wings are tied up by his
record label so we cant really judge his true level of creativity
and performance! Right now he is not more than a very talented “collage
maker“ with a keen ear for details and HIT-factors, and his
lovely “Arash Arash” is a charming “Frankenstein” made
mainly of other artists’ dissected song-parts! … elegantly
patched up! The material is simple and the production clean, custom-made
for a non-Iranian crowd who has no clue about what the man is singing
about or what cultural “hodgepodge” he is serving! While
to anyone with at least a lingual clue, the whole projects sounds,
although truly CHARMING, but still nothing more than a CHARADE! The
main responsible factor for this rather unnecessary confusion is
Arash’s insistence on using a pseudo-Hindi accent which makes
this whole thing sounding as something too light-hearted to be taken
seriously. I can only imagine what real Punjabis think about someone
who inflict himself as one of them but sings in …Persian! It
took years for the Swedes to be able to ALMOST distinguish between
different Middle Eastern cultures, and Arash’s contribution
does not exactly help the case by adding another element to the dilemma!
Some might class this as WORLD-MUSIC, but no culturally motivated
world-musician would EVER adopt such commercial manoeuvres like a
pseudo-accent! Which is only a proof of the late Edward Said’s
argument on “Orientalism” and the Orientalistic ART (not
oriental)! To reflect a distorted image of the East for the Westerners
CAN be experienced as entertaining in the short run, but in the long
run it causes more harm to the real movement of cultural integration
and WORLD-MUSIC …than good! I am sure that this “disservice” is
not “intentionally” committed by Arash, however, a sense
of responsibility should always be added to the commercial ambition
in order to neutralise the damage factor.

Nevertheless is Arash’s artistic emergence and debut a heavy
and significant millstone in our music history and its positive achievements
should be acknowledged and not overlooked!
KHASTE NABASHI ARASH JAAN!!
BRA GJORT MIN VÄN!!!